The Nun

       When a couple of nuns located at a remote abbey in Romania are found dead by a local, the Catholic church sends a priest and a novitiate nun to investigate. They find that the nuns who were deceased were the last ones at the abbey, but there is still someone, or something, lurking around the stone walls of the abandoned castle.

       Another trend to make its way into popularity, as of late, is the cinematic universe. Marvel pretty much holds the prize for being the most known and most well done, but other studios have attempted to replicate this concept. Universal studios attempted to create their own, nicknaming it the "Dark Universe", but we saw how that turned out. And now we have a new contender. By using the film The Conjuring as a starting point, James Wan, the director of The Conjuring and a producer for The Nun, has started building his own scary movie universe. So far, it's off to a good start. Almost every film in the franchise has received praise one way or another, except for the first Annabelle film which saw itself receive the franchise's few rotten scores on Rotten Tomatoes. With that in mind, does The Nun solidify itself as a worthy entry in the Conjuring franchise? I say yeah, but is it as good as the previous films? I will answer that by forcing you to imagine me teetering my hand side to side. In other words, it's pretty 'meh'.

       The biggest problem with this movie is its lack of narrative direction and focus. There is a setup and there is a story at the beginning of the film, but after our two characters and the local show up at the abandoned castle, the story drifts away and instead we get to watch the demon, Valek, host his own gothic Pranked show on our heroes. The story finally picks up when the characters learn a crucial step that's important in sealing away the demon, but by the time you get to the climax, it won't be as fun as it could've been. 

       This movie wasn't disappointing just because of the scarceness of the story, but also because of the horror itself. There is some grotesque imagery and it's actually one of the better aspects of this movie, but it's the scares themselves that proved unflinching. It's a lazy jumpscare fest and I was actually sad when I found out that that's what it was going to be. The Conjuring 1 and 2 are both praiseworthy horror films because of how Wan handled the horror. He has a talent for the craft and shows that there is more to making a horror film than jump scares, but he didn't direct this movie so we're stuck with the results of Corin Hardy.
       There are, however, some seriously strong qualities with this movie. The production design is amazing and the gothic aesthetic is done well and compliments the story nicely. Also, the acting is well done. Farmiga and Bicher really give their best shot, but their performances are ultimately undermined by the bareness of the story.
       Overall, I'm not as wowed by this movie as I wanted to be. I recognize that because of my expectations based on the previous films, there is some bias. If you're the type of person that enjoys a good scary movie no matter the quality then you will have a good time with this film. If you're more attentive to certain elements that make a scary movie more enjoyable then this film might not be in your best interest. It's by no means a bad movie, I was just expecting more. 3.5/10